Amare
by Lachesis Fatali
Summary: A dark musing on love, brought to you by everyone's favorite maniac-despressive. Duo's POV.


"Amare"  
by Lachesis Fatali  
  
I honestly have a grudge against romance and romantic love in general. And when I found this poem, I absolutely knew that I had to write a story to go along with it. So naturally I chose the characters of Duo and Heero (a couple of my "chosen triad" of approved romances) to use to explore ideas of love and why it makes people weaker then they have to be. But also why we need it, and how it sustains us against the hasher aspects of our lives. If we can accept the price. This one is rather dark, so if you've been having a bad day or have been subjected to more than two hours of math during school, I would not suggest you read this story. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy.  
  
************  
  
::Love cannot hurt me, I'm numb to it's sweet kiss::  
  
  
I never truly learned to recognize love until it was dead and gone, something to be reflected upon on long winters nights or laughed at it in song. I was always on the verge of remembering the crucial feeling, recognizing how to fully open my heart to another person when they were taken away from me. Slipped away into the past and darkness, and though I was the God of Death, the death of love was something utterly beyond me. Confusing, pointless, until I looked back and realized just what I had lost. So naturally I connected love with death, the pain of innocents, of the slow blossoms of crimson spreading out into the snow. Love and Death. Death and Love. An inseparable pair.  
  
//Sister, why did you leave me?//  
  
To have loved and lost is better than to have not loved at all. Popular phrase. People should try it sometime. To allow yourself to love something fully, without limits or boundaries, without fear of rejection or consequence. Try it... and then scream in hatred and rage as the person is taken away from you. Try it, and cry in sorrow and longing as they are snatched from your arms by a hand that is not so much divine as it is dark. It's a great experience, really. The stuff of legends and pop music.  
  
//Solo, why didn't you keep your promise?//  
  
If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it is yours to keep. Another common phrase. Love something, let it go. A necessary part of love, the talent to give it up. Love: commonly known as ability to lock away a part of your soul from another person, keeping the dark core of your own heart a secret. Keeping part of yourself, your dreams and fears safe inside you where no one can reach them. So when the ones who love you leave you, ripping away at the ties that once connected, you still have part of you that's serperate. Strong. Impenetrable.  
  
Alone...  
  
//Father, where is your loving god?//  
  
There is no greater love than this, for a man to lay down his life for a friend. From the bible, God's own words supposedly. I have never seen God's love. The only thing I have ever seen from god if death. A God of Death. A surprisingly accurate assumption. For Death comes with love. Well to hell with the bible. Love should never have to be proven through sacrifice. If you love someone, you *stay* with them. You hold them on cold winter days, you help them with their algebra. You throw them in lake in the summer, laughing as they pull you down into the water with them. You don't leave them.   
  
You *never* leave them.  
  
So why did he leave me?  
  
::I will not let it bleed my soul, or poison me with bliss::  
  
Love is a type of poison. Everyone suffers from it. A gentle, pleasing poison, which does not kill quickly. It infects the entire world, feeding upon people until they are nothing but dried husks, to hardened to care anymore, yet to softened by the experience not to long for it again. For it is pleasant. It is comforting. It is solace from life, which completes the job of love much faster. But it destroys you in the end. It preys upon you, every moment of your life, stabbing into your heart each moment you are with them.   
  
//The chapel masses...//  
  
::stab::  
  
//Christmas Eve...//  
  
::stab::  
  
I was once bitten by a snake, a long time ago. It was by the seashore, while I was building castles on the sand. Back when my mother loved me, before she left. The snake bit me on the ankle when I dug to close to it's den. I remember the fiery pain racing up my leg, the gnawing sensation of ice and needles preying upon my flesh. I cried out and my mother was there, whispering comfort, watching me with her eyes. And I saw her suffer with me, the anguish that filled her eyes everytime I cried out, the torment when I told her my body felt like it was burning. She could feel everything I was feeling, through that poison that is love. It infected her, like the poison had infected me.  
  
So why... why do we still long for it?  
  
//The battles...//  
  
::stab::  
  
//His eyes...//  
  
::stab::  
  
Why do I still long for him?  
  
//His beautiful eyes...//  
  
::stab::  
  
//Why can't I see them any more...//  
  
::stab::  
  
//Why...//  
  
::stab::  
  
//WHY!//  
  
  
::Love cannot touch me, my disguise is too complete::  
  
  
I learned long ago that people can be fooled easily. Stupidest creatures on the planet, in my opinion. All I have to do is give them a grin, a sparkling smile and a non-chalant "I'm fine". They believe me. And they leave me be.  
  
//He never believed me//  
  
Love can be fooled also. It's not that intelligent either, being a reflection of human emotion. You give it hugs, you give it kisses, you give it smiles and long nights spent talking. You give it flowers on Valentine's day, gilded gifts on Christmas and good wishes on it's Birthday. You give it cups of chicken soup, laugh at it's jokes which aren't truly funny, and give it gentle reassurance.  
  
But you never give it you.  
  
//What did he give me...//  
  
To that do would be as foolish as love is. Giving yourself entirely... so foolish. A denial of yourself, a denial of your nature. A denial of the selfish core within us all. A refusal of the ultimate state of existence, to be along and empty, with chaos and freedom and a world with no concerns or rules. No pain. No needing, and no gain. Nothing. Nothing cannot hurt you.  
Giving of yourself... maybe that's what love should be.   
  
But it isn't.  
  
Because we still know how to trick it.  
  
  
::My walls are raised, all weapons bared I revel in it's defeat::  
  
  
Love is like any other enemy I have had. Every other obstacle I have had to overcome. I lie in wait for it, silent and sure, knowing that I can conquer, that I will be the victor. Never anticipating my defeat. It has always yielded to me.   
  
//Like he did...//  
  
//Yielded to me...//  
  
But love is strong also. Sometimes. Like a dandelion. When it is first offered, it is gentle, wispy, like the pale white seeds floating on a summer's breeze. So easy to refuse. So easy to blow away. But once accepted, it takes root. Twining into you, around you, making you one with it. So much harder to attack and destroy when it is already in you. Like most things, it's best to destroy it early, when you have the chance.  
  
I am not afraid to oppose it.  
  
I have never lost.  
  
  
::Love cannot mock me I'm wise now to its ploy::  
  
  
I loved sitting in the park in the afternoon, when I was free from my duties. I would sit there for hours, sometimes merely watching the clouds move across the sky. Every possible day I was there, even in the dead of winter, the cold meaning nothing to me. Winter was the most beautiful, with the ice glistening like tears upon the trees, the snow shielding the world from it's tainting human contact. Most of the time I was alone, seeing as no one wanted to risk the weather besides me.  
  
//He came with me//  
  
//I wanted him with me//  
  
But one day a couple, a boy and a girl, came by my silent place, laughing with one another, talking softly. They practically glowed with happiness, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, hers around his waist. Smiles bright on both their faces. The world open before them, nothing standing in their way.  
  
I wanted to cry.  
  
//What are you doing?!//  
  
I wanted to scream at them.  
  
//Don't you know what happens when you love//  
  
I wanted to yell and seethe and rage at them.   
  
//Don't you know that the smiles fade away, that the laughter turns to tears, that the world will close before you//  
  
But I said nothing.  
  
//...That you'll be left alone//  
  
I merely watched them walk, a violent apparition, a passing dream of something I once knew, twining out to me. But it cannot reach me any longer.  
  
  
::No facade can hide the truth I will not be it's toy::  
  
  
You see it in movies now. You read about it in novels. The bare chested heroes, the damsels in distress. A legend, a story, a song; names changing but always the same ideas, the message always repeating. Love conquers, love heals, love supports, love is undeniable, ageless, powerful. Love always wins.  
  
//He always won his battles//  
  
//So why did he die?//  
  
But I see through the lies. Why does every movie never have a real ending? Why does every novel finish without completely solving everything, without spelling everything out simply in words you can understand? It's because there is no true happy ending. Love conquers, but conquerors destroy to gain. Love heals, but it also caused the wounds. Love supports, because it has weakened the foundations. Love is undeniable because we're weak, ageless because we fear death, and powerful because we cannot deny it.  
  
//I could not deny him anything//  
  
We are so helpless against it because we yearn for it, the one thing we believe can fill us, give us purpose. We are taught to seek it, to search for it, even to find substitutes for it. But who's to say we are not complete already? Who's to say we need love to be completely happy?  
  
I see through it's ploys.  
  
//I am alone//  
  
I am free.  
  
//I am alone//  
  
  
::Love cannot reach me, so armored in my sin::  
  
  
I could never love him. At least that's I thought. I wrapped myself inside my past, inside the darkness I created, inside the light that was truly me. But he knew. He always knew. He saw through my sarcastic remarks, through the bold and brash declarations, through the facade of love and death.   
  
But he just watched me. Watched and waited, accepting what I wanted, and what I never wanted again.   
  
I didn't think he could reach me. I didn't think I wanted him to.  
  
I'll never slip like that again.  
  
  
::Alone I sit, forever damned and dream what might have been::  
  
  
Why did you leave me? You who never broke a promise, you who never lied? You who were open and free, even in the hands of love. You found a way around it, and you found your way to me. And then you left.   
  
Damn you, why!  
  
WHY!  
  
  
::Love...cannot save me::  
  
  
************  
  
::sigh:: That was so much fun to write. I guess I'm just a tragedy junkie.  
  



End file.
